They had seen him, the pilot and the gunner.
The big forward gun wavered towards him as he stood his ground, buffeted, shaken by the explosions around him. They had seen him too late.
Through the open sight his aim caught the dark hole of the engine exhaust. Three seconds and the whine of the launcher had become a scream at his ears.
Barney fired.
A different flare of light in the sky, a streak of light, clean and pure against grey stone and grey valley walls. A purging angel light sweeping up and away from the distant slow descent of the Very flares in their many colours.
No flare had been fired from the right side of the helicopter.
The missile winged at the helicopter seven hundred feet above in a blur of white brilliance.
'Go, you…' Barney's scream was cut short by the detonation.
In the moments between the time that the pilot would have seen the lone man with the launcher and the time he could have reacted at the controls of the Mi-24, the missile struck. The helicopter was turning away, but the altitude of the valley determined that its movement would be lethargic in the thinned-out atmosphere. Too slow to hide the exhaust vent from the shrieking speed of the missile. Schumack was heaving at the trouser cloth around his ankles, trying to drag Barney back into the darkness of the granary, and Barney was riveted to the helicopter and the impact point. The final lurch on the helicopter's flight path had confused the missile electronics sufficiently for the hit to be against the tinted glass of the pilot's canopy.
He heard the shouting, the squealed excitement of the mujahidin who were invisible to him, scattered in the warren of the village. He saw in his mind the gaping hole of the cockpit canopy, and the glass shivers that had slashed and speared the pilot. Perhaps it was because the pilot's hands had locked the control stick in a particular position, but the helicopter seemed to slide down in a gentle arc towards the river bed on the far north side of Atinam. It came down as if the pilot was determined that the landing should be smooth. He saw in his mind a glazed stare on a young pilot's face. He saw a body stripped naked and bloodied and lying on the rubbish heap of the village, where the dogs came, where the vulture birds came.
They wriggled out through the back window of the granary a few tight seconds before the building crashed under a rain cloud of rocket fire.
As they ran, weaving, hugging the stone walls, Barney heard the scrape metal crash of the helicopter's landing, heard the spinning whistle of the rotors that the pilot could not stop.
Barney undipped the empty launch tube, discarded it behind him, let it roll to a drain. Schumack led. Schumack had plotted the ground, chosen the next refuge.
'Another hundred feet and he'd have beaten you,' Schumack shouted. 'That was good luck for you, hero man. I'm not pissing on your ego. You were lucky…'
As he was dragged along, Barney wondered why he had been chosen to be lucky, how it was decided that he deserved luck.
There were loudspeakers rigged in Eight Nine Two's Operations Room.
Those who listened to the helicopter assault on the village of Atinam received little indication of the pilots' excitement as they flew up the valley towards their target, of their nerves as they came over the ground fire, of their elation as they surged up to safety. The communication with the operations room was linked through the laconic and short-worded Captain of Frontal Aviation circling high above the valley in the Antonov Colt, a swimmer treading water. The listeners were Major Pyotr Medev, the Frontal Aviation commander of the Jalalabad base, the Colonel of Intelligence, Rostov and two signal technicians.
The loudspeakers were crudely tuned. The voice of the Captain in the Antonov was magnified and coarse, but his words were clear. Each man in the room heard each word the Captain spoke.
There was no shout, there was no cry of alarm. It was a factual, drab report that chattered from the speakers to their ears.
'XJ SUNRAY reports hit… XJ SUNRAY radio distort… XJ SUNRAY radio break up… XJ SUNRAY losing height, speed… XJ ROGER clear of target… XJ KILO, XJ LIMA engaging missile launch position… XJ SUNRAY down… repeat XJ SUNRAY down…'
The moment when a hammer seemed to strike Medev. The moment when the breath wheezed from the throat of the Frontal Aviation commander. The moment of the fist belting into the palm of the hand of the Colonel of Intelligence. The moment when Rostov squared his back against the plywood wall as if to hide himself. The moment that two technicians stared at the floor's linoleum.
Medev had the microphone in his hand. He gripped it, white-fingered. Almost a strangle hand at his throat as he spoke.
'Confirm XJ SUNRAY down.'
'XJ SUNRAY down, confirmed, visual sighting…XJ SUNRAY down one hundred metres north from village perimeter, down into river bed…'
'Is XJ SUNRAY destroyed on landing?'
'Negative…no fire, no disintegration on landing.'
'What is the state of ground fire?'
'Pilots report slackening of ground fire, no longer engaged by tracer from machine guns.'
'He's outthought you, Medev.' The snap of contempt from the Colonel of Intelligence.
'They use the machine guns for a single purpose, then silence them. They are more interested in the protection of the weapons than the protection of the village.' The astonishment of the Frontal Aviation commander.
'Have you learned nothing? The machine guns are important to them, and the missile. The village is irrelevant. The destruction of our helicopter is important to them.' Still the sneer of the Colonel of Intelligence.
'Then the village will be destroyed.' Bridling anger from the Frontal Aviation commander.
'Who gives a shit about the village? The attack was on one man armed with a missile launcher. Two air strikes, two helicopter strikes, in one day. And we lost two helicopters for it, for one man. Don't talk about destroying a fucking village.'
'Would you be quiet, gentlemen,' Medev said softly.
There was something of steel in Medev's voice, something of diamond in his eyes. Still the pale skin clench of his fist on the microphone.
'What is the possibility of rescue?' Medev asked of the microphone.
'XJ KILO, XJ LIMA report ground movement in the area of the village closest to XJ SUNRAY'S position. They are making frequent use of flares on speed passes over XJ SUNRAY…they report that it is not now possible to locate the heavy machine guns.'
'Repeat, what is the possibility of rescue?' An icy shiver in Medev's voice.
'I am instructed by the pilots to relay that they will attempt a rescue which will involve XJ ROGER landing beside XJ SUNRAY. The pilots wish you to authorise a rescue.'
'It has to be a landing?'
'XJ ROGER reports he believes that the pilot of XJ SUNRAY would have been injured in the missile detonation. XJ ROGER believes he has seen movement in the cockpit, he cannot be certain.'
'Repeat, it has to be a landing?'
'Confirmed.'
'Repeat, the heavy machine guns have not been located?'
'Confirmed.'
'Repeat, it is believed the pilot of XJ SUNRAY may be injured, the condition of the gunner is not known?'
'Confirmed.'
Medev looked to no man in the room for approval. The skin trembled at his cheeks. He was gazing at the map on the wall, at the chinagraph symbols marking the location of area Delta and the village of Atinam.